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Steve Jobs' now-famous 2005 commencement speech at Stanford should be filed in the same category as Brian's speech to the unruly mob of dazed followers who, based on nothing, mistakenly believe he's the new messiah in Monty Python's Life of Brian.

"You're all individuals!" Brian commands his flock.

"Yes, we're all individuals!" they chant in unison.

"You're all different!" Brian cries, since they don't seem to be getting it.

"Yes, we're all different!" they reply. ("I'm not," says one feeble voice, which gets shushed in the general fervor for platitudes.)

Let us turn in our hymnals to the gospel of Steve to the Stanfordites, in which he urged mass uniqueness:

Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love...Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

Whether we're talking about finding a job or finding a spouse, this is spectacularly poor advice for most people. (See, for instance, economist Robin Hanson.)

Holding out for the perfect and drifting restlessly from one bed/desk to another only looks smart from the top down, after you've made it to the CEO suite (or married Heidi Klum). If you're just starting out, what you need to hear is something much more prosaic: Be reliable, work your way up and always be learning. The odds are against your founding one of the biggest brands on earth in your mom's garage at age 20.

Jobs' Stanford advice is not just trite, misleading and foolish, it's also a symptom of a deeper problem with Generation Apple. They venerate great individuals without understanding that not everyone is great. Even those who are rarely get to call all the shots -- no man is an iLand.

Let's look at Wall Street Journal's Ron Alsop's account of how the Jobsians are faring a year later, after they've taken off their flip-flops and put on their pumps.

When Gretchen Neels, a Boston-based consultant, was coaching a group of college students for job interviews, she asked them how they believe employers view them. She gave them a clue, telling them that the word she was looking for begins with the letter "e." One young man shouted out, "excellent." Other students chimed in with "enthusiastic" and "energetic." Not even close. The correct answer, she said, is "entitled." "Huh?" the students responded, surprised and even hurt to think that managers are offended by their highfalutin opinions of themselves.

If there is one overriding perception of the millennial generation, it's that these young people have great -- and sometimes outlandish -- expectations.

The idea that you are the lone-wolf visionary hero of your own life and everyone around you is irrelevant or clueless is an enduring American myth. The personification of a rebuke to this dangerously self-delusional notion is … Steve Jobs. Not his life. His death.